World War Hulk
Plot Summary and Credits
After the Hulk’s new home planet of Sakaar is ravaged by an explosion from his own ship, killing many of his people including his wife and unborn child, he takes his allies to Earth for revenge on the heroes who sent him away. He defeats Black Bolt and the Inhumans with little effort and moves onto New York, where he is met by an army of superheroes he once called friends. Iron Man tries to convince the Sentry to intervene, but he refuses due to his fear of losing control of himself. Instead, Iron Man faces the Hulk alone and loses, followed by Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four and countless others, all taking drastic measures to try and stop him. With the heroes defeated, Hulk gathers them into an arena to fight each other to the death as he and his allies were made to when he first arrived on Sakaar, an event that is interrupted when the Sentry finally arrives. The battle between two strongest beings on the planet nearly destroys the city before Hulk steps back, but he is pushed back into a rage when his friend Meik reveals that he was the one who detonated the bomb that killed his people, in the hopes of keeping the Hulk on his true path of war. Enraged at himself and everyone around him, Hulk is stronger than ever before, shaking the very earth with a step. When he finally transforms back into Bruce Banner, he is taken prisoner by the army. Back on the ruined Sakaar, it is revealed that the Hulk’s unborn child still lives.
Greg Pak (writer), John Romita Jr (penciller), Klaus Janson (inker), Christina Strain (colourist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer), Hulk created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Collects World War Hulk #1-5
My Copy
I got this comic almost immediately after finishing my review of Planet Hulk, a title that had quickly become one of my favourites. This was the same trip that put last week’s entry of The Astounding Wolf-Man on my shelf, keeping with the ‘misunderstood monster’ theme.
Before Reading
Like I just mentioned, Planet Hulk landed on my top ten list before I’d even finished reading it. Even though I already knew how World War Hulk ended from watching a cartoon summary/parody, I was nonetheless excited to have a firsthand look at it.
After Reading
Even knowing what happens, I still enjoyed this continuation of the Planet Hulk story. The Hulk can be seen as both the hero and villain, since he’s invading Earth with destructive intent but has a somewhat understandable reason for it, even if that reason turns out to be a lie. I definitely rooted for him in the first couple of chapters, but he became harder to empathise with as the story went on, namely when he followed the suggestions of his Warbound allies to out his defeated foes in a gladiatorial arena and forces them to kill each other. Despite this, he does get a bit of redemption when he surrenders to the army, recognising the destruction he’s caused while still not forgiving the people who sent him away.
The whole conflict is essentially a series of escalating one-on-one battles, where each of Hulk’s opponents go to extreme lengths to take him down. We start of with Iron Man, who appropriately dons his Hulkbuster armour, followed by an attempt by Mr Fantastic to create a simulation the Sentry. Doctor Strange takes this even further by letting a demon possess him, a decision that’s built up as being the last of last resorts. Finally, after spending the last five chapters debating whether he should risk losing control, Sentry joins the fray and comes very close to doing exactly that, which anyone who knows about his darker half knows would be very bad indeed. And what does all of this do? Just make Hulk even angrier until his footsteps shatter the ground beneath him. These kinds of actions have been taken before to combat many a world-ending threat, and they tend to do the job. It shows just how scary the Hulk is when he stops holding back, and that he could probably take on most of the aforementioned world-ending threats on his own, assuming nobody cared about the resulting property damage.
When it’s all over, Hulk goes back to pretty much exactly how he was before, hunted by the world and only wanting to be left alone, smashing a few villains along the way. I found that this is what this story is really about: bringing the character back to his original ways after a grand saga of galactic shenanigans, a tradition we see with a lot of heroes when they run out of storylines. It can be pretty tiring to see characters go through the same cycles over and over, but it does work in this case, since at this point Hulk has lost everything and the only direction he can go is back to his old ways.
A pretty small thing that I couldn’t shake was that the title isn’t the most accurate. It isn’t really a ‘World War’, since almost all of the fighting takes place in New York aside from the brief battle with the Inhumans on the moon. Maybe it’s referring to all of the heroes of the world coming together to fight the Hulk? This is really just me being pedantic though, and most people probably wouldn’t even think about it. Just goes to show how much I enjoyed this read.
Closing Thoughts
Not-Quite-World War Hulk brings an iconic storyline to a satisfying conclusion, pitting its titular green hero against his supposed enemies and returning him to his roots.
I’ll be reviewing another famous event of the Marvel universe next week, where not just one world but all of them face their Doom.
